Movies: Past, present and future

On screen and off, the new Paul Rudd-starring comedy "Our Idiot Brother" is a family affair. Rudd plays a laid-back organic farmer who gets busted for selling weed to a uniformed police officer and, after a quick stint in prison, bounces around the homes of his three go-getter sisters, effectively throwing their lives into chaos.

The film surely draws inspiration from the lives of its kin creators: Jesse Peretz directs and Evgenia Peretz, his sister, co-wrote the screenplay with her husband, David Schisgall. The result seems to have pleased most critics, largely thanks to Rudd's easygoing performance.

As The Times' Betsy Sharkey writes, "You can thank Paul Rudd for the natural high that keeps 'Our Idiot Brother' floating along so amusingly." Sharkey adds, "The comedy isn't always as crisp as it should be, but [director Jesse] Peretz has the perfect partner in crime in Rudd. The actor has an uncanny ability to create characters that feel completely devoid of avarice, angst or anything unseemly. There is nary a worry line on that brow, and I don't think it's Botox."